Elissa Wall

Elissa Wall was born on July 6, 1986 in Salt Lake City Utah to Lloyd Wall and Sharon Steed. Elissa's family were members of FLDS Church and Elissa was one of the last of Lloyd's 22 children. As a child Elissa went to school at Alta Academy a church run school that future leader Warren Jeffs was Principal of. When Elissa was 9 years old her elder brothers and their father got into a fight and because of this Warren decided that Lloyd was not worthy of having Sharon or her children, so Sharon and her youngest children went to live with church elder Fred Jessop (who was almost 90 at the time). Elissa did not have an easy time of it because there were so many children living there and they would make fun of the Wall kids because they did not have a father. Soon after though Sharon and Fred were married and Elissa was forced to call him father and go by the name Elissa Jessop. In early 2001 when Elissa was 14 Fred had a family meeting were he told the family that he "found a place" for three of the daughters of the family meaning that three girls would soon be married. At first Elissa did not realize that she was one of them, but once she did she tried to fight against it especially after she found out she was to marry her 18 year old first cousin Allen Steed, whom she could not stand. In late April of 2001 she and two of her "step sisters" (including Flora Jessop's sister Ruby)were married. Elissa spend the next three years trying to get out of the marriage, getting raped and having several miscarriages. When she was 17 though things changed. That was when she met Lemont Barlow who was a former FLDS member. Soon they were in love and after she became pregnant with their first child she was granted a "release" or divorce from Allen. After Elissa left the FLDS she had a hard time getting rid of some of the Cult mentalities that she had. It helped that several of her sisters had also left the FLDS. Her sister Rebecca who had been married to Warren Jeffs father and is currently married to his nephew was instrumental in getting Elissa to press charges against Warren Jeffs. Because of the court case and Elissa's testimony Warren was found guilty of accomplice to rape and is currently surviving 10 years to life for it. Afterward Elissa wrote a book about her life and has spoken out about polygamy. She and Lemont got married during the court case and are now the parents of a son and daughter.